Built in 1911 this 120 foot tall tower houses a steel water tank that still supplies water to Lincoln today. The building was commissioned after an outbreak of typhoid between 1904-1905 which killed approximately 113 people. The architect Sir Reginald Blomfield designed the tower to resemble a medieval keep so it wouldn’t look out of place with the nearby castle and cathedral. The water in the tower is still drawn from its original source in Elkesley in Nottinghamshire.
The Guildhall and Stonebow has been the meeting place of Lincoln City Council from medieval times to the present. The term stonebow is derived from Old Norse and means a stone arch. The first gateway on the site dates from around 211AD. The Guildhall which was located elsewhere was moved to above the stonebow in 1237. The present Guildhall however dates from 1520.
Lincoln Castle is directly opposite Lincoln Cathedral and I visited both with a joint ticket of £18. Built in 1068 by William the Conqueror the castle is also the site of a Victorian prison, one of only four original copies of the Magna Carta and Lincoln’s Crown Court, which is still in use today.
Lincoln is only an hour or so away from Nottingham so I decided to take a trip there recently and bought a joint ticket to both the Cathedral and Lincoln Castle which was well worth the price of £18. An easy-ish walk from the railway station (there is a steep hill involved though buses are also available) some of the Cathedral was under scaffolding when I visited but that didn’t detract from the impressiveness of the building.
I seem to have made quite a few trips to the beach this year. The most recent excersion was to Huttoft in Lincolnshire. We used to come here a fair bit when I was a child and what I remembered most were the concrete ramps down to the beach. These have evidently been done away with and the beach is now level with the free car park, making it much easier to access. There was some mist rolling across the beach when we arrived but it soon brightened up and the sea was lovely and warm. Not too busy or overcrowded it’s still as lovely a place to visit now as when I was a child.
When we visited Gunby Hall we also went on to explore St Peter’s Church which, like so many churches on National Trust grounds, is not maintained by the Trust. In fact this church serves a congregation of only around 20 people.
On a gorgeously sunny day (remember them?) we decided to head out to Gunby Hall and Gardens, a National Trust property in Lincolnshire. A country house built around 1700, it’s one of those rare properties I like because it feels like a home, and not somewhere to be admired because of its beautiful rooms.
The Parish Church of St. Peter and St. Paul is on the grounds of Belton House, although it is not actually maintained by the National Trust.
On a spectacularly sunny day in June I went to Belton House, a National Trust property in Lincolnshire. It has been in the possession of the Brownlow family since 1609, though its current design owes much to work ordered by Sir John Brownlow in 1684, and has some surprising historical connections – Edward VIII stayed there before his abdication and during World War One it housed a camp for the Machine Gun Corps. It was given to the National Trust in 1984.
The Collegiate Church of the Holy Trinity in Lincolnshire was built around 1465-85, its commission requested in the will of Ralph Cromwell, owner of the nearby Tattershall Castle.
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